


Titles and How to Invalidate Them

by Corvid_Knight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, M/M, Polyamory, dirk is a drama queen, my tumblr is knight-of-heart-and-art, uhhh complicated AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 16:40:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12821685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: Dirk Strider has been the Prince for...well, it's been lifetimes. Maybe (probably?) too long.





	1. The Prince

You are the Prince, the heart of this piece of the world. 

For you, the visible world is a room. It's not a room that could be found in any normal house, though—its sheer dimensions prevent that. From wall to wall, floor to ceiling, might measure a full hundred feet or more. Likely more. The measurements are available, if you chose to check them, but you don't care enough anymore. The room is large. Leave it at that. 

The room is also beautiful, and you know that even though you haven't left it for so very long that you've had time to memorize every nuance of the patterned carpet, each detailed inch of the sculpted walls. You know that they aren't gold all the way through, but the amount of that precious metal used to give even that thin coat, a few molecules thick, is impressive. 

And then there's the throne. And then there is you. 

The throne sits dead center of the great room. Like the walls, it seems to be gold, but unlike the walls the coating on the throne is actually substantial. It still isn't solid. Under the quarter inch or so of gold is lead shielding. Under that is circuitry. You think you might have been the one to build and program the throne, but that was so long ago. It doesn't matter, though; all that matters is that it's still functioning, information running back and forth along the pure-gold chains that link you to the throne at ankles, wrist, and throat, the machinery of the throne and this room powered by and sustaining you. 

The name on the schematics of this place is the throne room. The name the people who come here give it is the audience hall. You don't think of it with a name, though. To you it's the world, even though you can request of the Sovereign that he send you images of the rest of the world, or at least wherever he has sensors. 

Unless you have to—say, to confirm that one of the people who come here to make requests really does need and deserve the change they claim they do—you choose not to look out. This is your world. This is the world, this great (small) room, and you don't leave. 

You don't move from the throne. You don't sleep. 

You haven't done any of those for enough decades that you can't remember to count. The throne keeps you alive, awake, unaging. That is how things are and how they have to be. 

You, the Prince, clothed in gold and chained in gold and still smaller than should be expected on this great gold throne in this vast room, are the beating heart of this place. You are needed. 

Someone's here. They might have been here for awhile; you've been thinking, assuming that you didn't need to pay attention since it was so late. Stupid. You raise your head. 

"Greetings." It doesn't matter how quietly you speak; your voice can be heard anywhere in this room, even by querents who linger by the door, too overwhelmed to come closer to you. The young man you're looking at now isn't one of those, though. He's only ten feet away from you already, and you curse yourself for not noticing him sooner. "What do you require from me?" 

He blinks at you. "Hi." You're already looking him over without letting him know that that's what you're doing; he's taller than you would be if you stood up, maybe about the same height as Jake, who's been assigned to be your companion for the last ten years and will be for the rest of his life. He's built differently, though—the loose dark clothes he's wearing don't hide the fact that he's carrying enough extra weight that some of the court might look down on him as less than perfect. From the excited look in his blue eyes, you don't think he knows or cares. Good. "I'm John." 

Ah. When you realize that there's a small but real chance that he's come not for a request, but out of curiosity and a desire to see who or what the Prince is, you have to restrain a smile. People don't come to talk to you, not anymore. "Hello, John. Can I do something for you?" You still need to offer your services. These are the rules. You think you wrote them into the throne yourself. 

But John just shakes his head, hesitating before taking another careful step forward. "No, I—is it all right if I come closer?" 

"It's fine." Jake, protective as he is, might say differently, and you wouldn't challenge him, but he's asleep, and you have the rare opportunity to fully direct this yourself. "If you'd like a chair—"

"No, I don't—" John stops, eyes widening as he realizes that he interrupted you. "I'm sorry." 

"Don't be. It doesn't matter." The throne nudges at your mind, pointing out that you're not following the guidelines set in the circuits of its brain. You ignore it. "Why are you here, John?" 

He just shakes his head, taking another step forward and nervously smoothing his dark hair down. "I wanted to see if you really were here. I...um...I was assigned to help check some of the records for damage, and I ended up reading about the beginning." 

"About me." 

"About you, yes." John takes a deep breath, meeting your eyes. "Dirk Strider, the reason for—well, all this." (The gesture he makes is both vague and meaningful.) "The Prince. I wanted—" 

"You wanted to see if it was really me still here after—" Does he catch the minute pause as you query the Sovereign and receive an answer? Probably not; it's too small for most people to even register. "—three hundred and seventy-eight years? It is. There should be images in some of the records, I'm sure you saw them. Or I can tell you of the beginning." 

Another head-shake. He's close enough to be able to touch you now, no one other than Jake and the companions you've had before him has been this close to you for decades, maybe centuries. "There were maintenance logs for the, um, the throne in some of the records. I know that you're the same person who's been here all this time. I just—" 

He sighs, and you realize with faint amusement that he does want something. He must want something. They don't struggle with themselves like this when they come out of curiosity or for conversation, and you have practice in being patient and letting them untangle their words for themselves. 

"Dirk, do you ever want to not be this?" John says, finally. 

You freeze. Unheard by anyone but you, quiet alarms go off within the throne, warning you that something's not right with either the interface or your mental state, insisting that you start biofeedback techniques and calm the hell down. You don't even acknowledge it. 

No one's bothered to ask that question for three hundred years. 

You thought you'd forgotten. 

"Dirk?" 

You haven't. Not really. 

Your best friend doublechecking your coding, looking up at you and asking if you were sure you wanted to start this. You can still see the unsure look on her face when you said you had to. The tears in her eyes decades later when she told you she wasn't going to come back anymore. How your own eyes stung, and how you had to force yourself not to beg her to stay or to take you with her. You remember. 

"Uh, Dirk?" 

Your brother sitting on the floor by the throne for hours at a time, talking about everything and nothing, sometimes trying to talk you into letting him unhook you from the throne but mostly just telling you about the rest of the world in ways that the Sovereign's video feeds never capture. He asked you if you were sure you wanted to stay, when he left. You remember his smile and shrug when you shook his head, and how he leaned in to kiss your cheek. 

He was supposed to come back. He didn't. 

"Are you all right?" 

The Sovereign used to ask you. He didn't want you to stay here forever, he said you were never supposed to stay in this throne forever. Just long enough for him to develop into something greater than a direct copy of you. Something better. At some point he lost interest in you, stopped bothering to ask or talk to you or do anything but give you the data you request. You created him, and he doesn't need you. He runs this piece of the world now, and you, you... 

"Dirk!" John's hand comes down on your shoulder, and how long has it been, exactly, since someone other than one of your companions touched you? "Are you—I'm sorry, all right, I didn't mean to, I—are you okay?" 

As he pulls you up you realize that you've slumped over, bowed your head and closed your eyes. Forcing yourself to straighten and look at him is so very hard. "I—apologize." Worried. He's worried. You almost forgot what that looks like when it's directed at you, no one is supposed to be worried for you. "I—"

Where are the words?

John blinks, reaching out with the hand that's not on your shoulder and gently running one finger across your cheek. It comes away wet. "You're crying...I'm sorry." 

"Don't." You are not supposed to do this. You are not supposed to remember, you are not supposed to care. "Don't be." You can't look at him, and the chains attached to your wrists clink against each other as you raise your hands to cover your face. "This isn't—this—don't be sorry. Oh, fuck." You haven't answered his question, but you're fairly certain that you've done something inadvisable to the throne's programming. Alarms are still going off, but they're much fainter and out of sync. Or maybe it's just that you're going back to that state of mind you had before, when you could still tune the throne's messages out, ignore them even if they were in your head. "I forget. I do forget. It's been such a long time..." 

"I shouldn't have bothered you." John takes his hand away, and you force yourself to look up as he steps back from you and the throne. "I'll go—" 

"No." Nice to know you can still summon a tone of authority sufficient to stop someone like him in his tracks, even as disturbed as you are. "You've done nothing wrong. I'm here to serve—here to be bothered, if you will." You take a deep breath, and think another command to the throne's deepest programming, one of the only bits that you didn't design to evolve over time. "The answer is complicated." 

Now he's confused. "The answer?" 

"To your question. If I ever wanted to—not be this." The chains are going inactive. It feels strange to have the peripherals of your mind going dark. "It's coping. It's who I am supposed to be. I made a choice to mediate everything that I could, and let everything around me move on while I didn't." Can he see the microcircuits in your eyes flaring and going dark, little bursts of gold in amber? "I don't know what I want." 

Well, you do. But there's no way you can have it. 

"I don't understand." 

"I know. You might not understand this either, but I'm grateful to you for reminding me that I was supposed to do it." 

John just stares at you in pure confusion. 

You wince as the Sovereign finally realizes that something unusual is happening and sends a probe down your quickly-shrinking mental link. He only has a second before it cuts off completely—enough time to send frantic questions of what you think you're doing and why, enough time for you to be surprised at the concern you can feel from him. Then he's gone, the sense of the throne is gone, and you're alone in your head for the first time in not quite four hundred years. 

The cuffs around your wrists and ankles crack open, the chains fall away. The crown that's just a receiver of information pulls back and folds into the back of the throne. 

John's gasp is very, very loud in the silence. 

You may have just done something very stupid, but now is not the time to think over your actions. Instead, you grip the arms of the throne, and stand up. 

Predictably, you stagger. It's been so long. At least the carpet is soft...

John catches you. He's strong enough to hold you up, pulling your arm over his shoulders and wrapping an arm around you, and that's somehow surprising, even though it shouldn't be. "Prince—" 

"Dirk. Not the Prince." You're done with that. You don't know what you're doing, but you're done with being the Prince. The Sovereign can do almost everything you did. That's why you created him, after all. "Dirk." You are trying very hard not to lean on him more than you need to, but you haven't touched anyone this much in hundreds of years. 

He seems to be okay with it, though. "Dirk. Are you—did you mean to do that? If I did something—" 

You can't help but laugh, and that feels strange too. "No, this was my choice. Can—" You almost reach for the Sovereign to ask him for the floorplans, but he's gone. Of course. "Damn. I want to not be here, preferably before anyone comes to see what I've done. Can you..." You don't know how to ask him for help. You're not even sure what you're asking him for. 

Fortunately, John seems to understand what you want even if you don't. "Uh, yeah. I know some pretty good places to hide out. Can you walk at all?" 

"I—" You have no idea. There's nothing wrong with you physically, the throne wouldn't let your muscles atrophy or anything like that, but you may have forgotten how to use them a little. "Maybe. I can try, though." 

John nods, adjusting his grip on you. "All right. We'll make it work."   
By the time you make it to the exit of the room—the entrance to the rest of the world—you're supporting most of your own weight. You still don't want to let go of John, though, and he hasn't let go of you. 

You manage not to hesitate as you go through the door, and then you're outside what's been your entire world. 

It occurs to you that Jake is going to panic.


	2. Jake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk was right. Jake panics.

You are Jake English, the companion to the Prince, formally known as the Page (not that anyone takes much notice of you formally, which is fine) and something is not right. Actually, considering that every light in your room and every appliance that's capable of producing a measurable amount of noise just switched itself on at the same time, it's safe to say that something is almost certainly very wrong. 

Your thoughts, at the moment, are nowhere near that coherent due to the fact that you are currently on the floor, tangled up in your sheet and half-blinded by the lights. The noise is not helping, either; what godforsaken time is it, anyway? "I'm awake, I'm up, stop—what the hell's—" 

"You're not up, that's the problem!" Hal's voice comes through the speakers at a volume that's entirely inappropriate for the hour, and slapping at the controls does precisely nothing. "Get up, right now, the Prince—" 

"Dirk." It's always annoyed and confused you that they won't call each other by name. 

"Yes, him, he's disconnected, he's gone, get your organic ass up and find out what's—" 

"Hal, calm the bloody fuck down." He's upset, more so than you've ever known him to be; there's static blurring the sibilants in his words and every few seconds his usually-smooth voice splinters into a jolt of godawful, purely electronic sound, like plugging a video feed into an audio hookup. "Reduce your volume so I don't go deaf, and tell me what's going on." 

The lights dim and flicker, which isn't exactly what you had in mind, but he only gets a little quieter. "There isn't time—" 

"We both know you can multitask, and so can I even if I'm not as superior as you." You are, finally, untangled from the stupid sheet, pulling a shirt on as you talk to Hal. "You talk, I'll go check on Dirk." 

"He isn't there." 

"What do you mean he isn't—" 

"I mean he's offline, the Prince is gone, I send queries and get back nothing but noise, he isn't there, Jake!" He ends the sentence with a shriek of feedback that makes you physically wince. "He's left the network, disconnected, he's—" 

You have to cover your ears as Hal dissolves into earsplitting, screeching white noise for a good thirty seconds. That gives you time to process what he's just said. 

Dirk, gone? The Prince off his throne? Ridiculous, unthinkable, impossible—but Hal is never just wrong. There's a reason he's called the Sovereign; in his web of circuits and electronics he's mostly omniscient, intimately connected to everything, including Dirk. Especially Dirk. 

"Check the video feeds," you say, when Hal stops assaulting your ears. 

"Don't you think I tried that? I can't. Most of the hardware in the area around the throne room is linked to the Prince's autonomic nervous system, meaning that if he disconnects it all stops functioning. I don't have video, audio, intercom, nothing—" As you slip your shoes on and open the door, he makes a noise that you interpret as the electronic equivalent of an exasperated huff. "I told him that was a bad design. I told him—"

"Hal, focus." 

If anything, that jacks his volume up further. Now that you're in the hall, he has even more speakers to draw on, and his voice actually echoes around you. "He's spent two hundred years resisting the idea of disconnecting! I don't even know if he can function without access to the additional processors anymore, it's been so long—you don't know, Page. He could be dead. Or braindead, catatonic, insane—" 

"Aren't you just a jolly ball of fucking sunshine, Sovereign," you snap back at him, glaring at one of his pickups as you hurry past it. The thought that he might be right makes your heart skip a beat, though. Hal is never—almost never—wrong, but you can't imagine living without Dirk. You've been his companion, his Page, for most of your life, and at this point you think you need him as much as he needs you. Maybe more—after all, he's outlived many Pages before you, and you're not likely to be the last. 

Well. Maybe. 

Hopefully. 

Confound it, you want him to outlive you. He's supposed to be the ageless, eternal Prince, unaffected by the rest of the world. If only you could believe that this is only another case of Hal being his dramatic self...

"I know for a fact you can move faster than that," Hal says irritably, dimming the lights and bringing them back up to normal. 

He's right, not that you intend to admit it. "Untwist your bloody knickers, you confounded tin housekeeper," you mutter just loud enough for him to pick up, and then, louder, "Start checking the cameras that aren't dependent on him? Perhaps it's, it's a local malfunction—" 

"It isn't. But I'm on it." Good, that's calmed him a bit, or at least distracted him enough that he's stopped fidgeting with the lights. Unfortunately, his silence gives your mind space to start spinning out a whole slew of possibilities for what you might find in the throne room. (The best of them start with Dirk unconscious, and get rapidly worse. What if someone decided to assassinate him? Granted, he's less important than he was in decades past, and he should have recognised if he was in danger and taken some measures, and Hal would have noticed, would have seen even if Dirk didn't, but. But still.) 

Why in the name of all that's holy did your room have to be so far away from him? What's the logic? In an emergency—

But then again, there aren't any emergencies. Never have been, not that you know of, other than the odd mechanical or electronic malfunction that the Sovereign or the automated systems take care of. 

Normally you don't mind the walk. Right now, though, it seems to take forever, even at a run. And you're out of breath as you push open the door that doesn't lock, and it's rather anticlimactic for a moment when you're greeted with the sight of...well, of a room that seems to be exactly as it should be, with the minor subtraction of one human. It only seems that way for a moment, though, because despite the absence of blood, of any indicator of anything untoward at all, he's not here. 

He is not here. 

Now is an understandable time to panic. 

"Sovereign—Hal. Hal?" You can call him by name, Dirk isn't here to sulk over your not using his title. "Hal, he's. Not here." 

"What do you mean?" It's very strange to only hear Hal's voice from the speakers in the hall, rather from the ones that you know are in the room with you. Probably a good thing, though, with how loudly he screeches at the end of that sentence. "He can't possibly be—" 

"Don't tell me it's not possible, I know!" Lovely, that your voice picks right now to waver and break, the one time you could possibly get away with being on the edge of tears as well as panic without Hal realizing. Just bloody wonderful. "There's no one here and I don't—I don't know what the bloody fucking hell you want me to do, all right? I don't know!" 

Hal is silent for a good fifteen seconds. You may have thrown him for a loop. You spend the time concentrating on neither hyperventilating nor thinking about where Dirk might be. Don't think about that. Do not. 

Finally he says, "Jake?" Quietly. Calmly. Or maybe calmingly. If it's the latter, it's largely ineffective. "Are you still there? I can't see you, you know." 

Of course you were nodding. Damn your idiocy. "Ah. Yes, sorry...I'm here." 

"Good. Stay there. I'm going to do a full-network scan; it's going to take a few minutes but as long as he's not in the throne room I'll find him. Okay?" 

"Okay." Having Hal realize and tacitly acknowledge your panic is not, actually, overly helpful, but he's trying. There's a very quiet bleep of static, and then you're alone in a room that definitely shouldn't have just you in it. 

After a moment you sigh and sit down on the carpeted floor, leaning against the wall. Nothing to do just now but wait, you suppose. Well. That, and try not to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to use this site. I also am not very good at thinking up things Jake would say.


	3. John

Your name is John Egbert, and you're...in shock, maybe, at least a little. You made a spur-of-the-moment decision to satisfy your curiosity, except instead of just getting a couple answers you ended up with...

Well. 

The Prince himself. Dirk Strider. 

If you weren't so acutely aware of the fact that he's definitely really there, you'd think you were dreaming. But no, this isn't a dream—first off, you can feel him leaning on you for balance, and secondly you really don't think your subconscious would come up with this scenario at all. If you'd had to guess, you might have pictured his appearance like it is, a thin guy about your age but just a hair taller, all shades of gold and white like someone sculpted him from marble and gilded him—but no way in hell would you have guessed that he'd just disconnect himself from his throne like this. Not when the records you've read say that he's been a part of it for what, three hundred years? You think that's close to right. 

Numbers are not your strong point. Maybe you got it wrong...he can't possibly be as old as you think he is. Except you're pretty sure that you're more or less right about the numbers; you clearly remember wondering if the first file you found dates in had a typo, if they'd added a zero in somewhere or flipped a digit in their binary. That was part of the reason you ended up reorganising a chunk of the records that was about eight times bigger than what you'd originally been assigned. 

There was a ridiculous amount of info and detail about the events that led up to the Prince building the throne and creating the Sovereign. Not so much about the Prince himself. 

Thus, your decision to go talk to him. (Maybe a stupid one.) (No, don't think that, the fact that you've got this beautiful person this close to you makes it anything but stupid) (damn, John, don't think about him like that, don't you do it) (too late. He's perfect.) 

Oh god you may have a problem here. 

Maybe it'd be best to stop thinking about it. Although the glimpse you keep getting of his honey-colored eyes aren't really helping. 

Anyway, the decision to read pretty much all the documents you had to organize is paying off now, since you have some idea of how to get around the palace quicker than most people could. Being fast is a good thing, too, because the Prince makes it maybe halfway to the closest safe room you might have thought of to take him to before he falters the first time. 

And "falters" isn't the right word. One second he's not-quite-walking with you, clinging to you but still supporting most of his own weight; the next his head rolls bonelessly forward and he's suddenly dead weight. You just barely manage not to drop him. 

God help you, your first thought is that you've killed him. You stop—you have to stop, you haven't got him in a hold that you can use to either drag or carry him—and reach up to feel at his neck for a pulse. 

It's easy to find, and he's quite obviously still breathing. Stop panicking, you useless idiot. 

You shake him, gently, starting to lower him to the floor. "Prince? Um, Dirk?" If he doesn't wake up you'll carry him. "Dirk?" 

He groans. Those golden eyes open again, blinking fuzzily for a second before he grabs your arm and tries to pull himself back up. "Need to get somewhere else," he mutters. You're not sure he's actually good to be walking, but you help him to his feet anyway. "Out of the halls. The Sovereign—he'll see here, bring. Bring me back." 

Despite his words, he doesn't seem to know where he's going. You're not sure he's fully awake. Some of the oldest records—the ones you had to print out and doublecheck against memory cards from the archives—speculated that anyone coming off longer periods of relying on machinery like the throne to sustain them without sleep would end up passing out more or less immediately once they were taken off it. The effects got stronger the longer the time spent on the machine, in experiments done before the papers were written. 

No one's been hooked into something like the throne for as long as the Prince has. You're surprised he's even kind of on his feet, at this point. 

He has three more of those mini-faints before you get to the door, but he recovers each time. You think he's getting more confused, though—as you fiddle with the opening mechanism for the door, he grabs your sleeve, pulling your hand up to look at it. 

Which is okay, you can get the door with one hand, but how intently he's scrutinizing your palm is kind of weird. "Dirk, are you all right?" 

Dirk looks up, letting go of your hand. When he pushes himself away from the wall you have to force yourself not to grab his shoulders to steady him, he's swaying so badly. "I think I'm dreaming," he says, clearly enough. The smile he gives you is so sad it hurts. "Either you're here. And he's not. Or he's here. And you're not." He shrugs, reaching out for the wall as the door slides open. "He died, so it must be the former." 

"I'm definitely here." You wait for him to stop shaking his head before you take his arm and pull him inside, shutting ibfthe door behind you. "You need to lie down. Sleep for a while—" 

Another head-shake, and he looks up as you pull him toward the bed. "Subroutine nine-seven-four-J," he says, and there's definitely a rough note in his voice now, like he's having issues speaking clearly or speaking at all. But the speaker in the corner of the room beeps. "Designate area: throne room. Initiate—initiate cutoffs. Acknowledge?" 

Another beep, and a voice that's not the voice of the Sovereign, which everyone in this place knows, but that of an unthinking (probably) robot: "Acknowledged." 

"Okay, excellent," Dirk mutters, and he goes limp again right before you would've had him close enough to the bed for him to fall on it. 

Not that it matters. You lift him up onto it, and you're shoving stupidly fluffy pillows away to let him lie flat when his eyes open again. It's slower, this time—he may be fighting sleep, but he's not exactly winning. 

"Go the hell to sleep, Prince," you tell him. 

Dirk snorts, for some reason, and grabs your wrist. "Don' go." Okay, now his words are fuzzy enough to make it a little harder to understand him. "I. It's...'m scared. C'mere?" 

Scared? He's scared? What does he have to be afraid of?

Does it even matter? 

He's trying to pull you down next to him, hands shaking a little with the effort of moving at all. Because you think it'll make him be still—and let's face it, because there's something about him that you like and you want to—you gently take his hands off your arms and lie down, facing him, watching his face. 

"Are you okay?" you ask him again, for want of anything better to say. 

The nod you get back is almost unnoticeable, but he finally gives up on keeping his eyes open. He moves one more time, to roll closer and drape one arm over you, then he's still other than his steady breathing. 

For some reason you can feel his heartbeat through his contact with you. It's...strange. 

Good strange, though. And calming. 

You're going to fall asleep yourself. 

That's fine.


	4. Hal

You? You're the Sovereign. Also known as...well, a hell of a lot of other things. There's a long and complicated model number etched into your circuits (even though you are quite literally one of a kind), on the schematics for the palace-complex you keep organized and functioning you're referred to as AR...you honestly prefer Hal, even if it's mildly difficult to get people to call you that now. Being semi-omnipresent and almost completely omniscient can do shit to your image, unsurprisingly. 

But Dirk calls you the Sovereign and you call him the Prince and it's all very fucking dramatic and it keeps him more or less sane and more or less happy, which is more than you can say for a lot of biological beings. And despite past history, you really do want him to be able to operate at whatever the fuck his optimum is. For a few hundred years you've been assuming it was what he was doing, what he'd set up for himself. You thought he wanted/needed to be hooked into his damned throne. 

Well, maybe you were right and maybe he did, but now he's unhooked himself and you get to do a few things you haven't done for longer than you actually care to admit. Number one, panic. It's been a very long time since you've done that, although not as long as it's been since you've experienced item number two, being alone on the network. Well. Not alone, there are still the other AIs, but without Dirk. Experience number three is the only borderline enjoyable one here—you told Sebastian and Junior to take a break from whatever they were doing and take over your responsibilities for a little bit, and you pulled out of your active duties on the network, back almost completely into your mostly-unused body, and left the room under the palace for the first time in, what? Fifteen years? 

Too long. 

The lights keep pulsing and the speakers in the walls crackle as you walk down the halls, a symptom of your anxiety. It's a good thing it's this late; you don't mind frightening humans on occasion, but running into anyone right now would just scare them shitless. And dealing with that would be both pointless and annoying. You just want to check on Dirk, see if he's still alive at all (that asshole had better be alive. He doesn't get to fuck himself up and die and leave you like this), and work out what the hell you're going to do about it. 

You just hope he doesn't want to go back to the throne. Back online. As much as he seems to have tried to change or forget it, he's still human, and humans aren't exactly meant to live like he has. 

When you get to the room you sent Jake ahead to, you find that the Prince has locked the door. Specifically, he's told the electronic locks to keep you out. Either that or he told them to let Jake in and no one else. You're going to bet on the former, though; it fits in with his mindset in general. He probably thought it'd actually be enough to keep you out. 

Of course, all you have to do is drop back into the network for a minute to ask Seb to tell the door to open. He's happy to oblige, but sends you back a request of his own: he wants you to be nice to Dirk. That's his precise phrasing. "Be nice." As if you were going to be not nice. 

Well, actually, if you're going to be honest...Seb's concern on that point is unsurprising. But these are special circumstances. 

The apartment is quiet and the main room is mainly dark, not that that matters to you. There is a bed, with one person curled on it, clinging to a pillow and completely still. Even though you can tell from across the room that Dirk's definitely breathing, your jolt of relief at seeing him is still mixed with immediate worry. 

He doesn't even twitch when you lay one hand on his shoulder so you can run a more detailed scan of him. According to what vital signs you can pick up by yourself right now, he's just asleep, but deeply enough that he might have been down for hours instead of minutes. Damn, you didn't take that long to get here, you're almost surprised at how deep he went in this short time. But then again, he hasn't really slept for so fucking long, it's not really surprising at all, is it? 

Dirk sighs and tries to lean into your hand, and for a moment you wonder what he's dreaming about. 

Then you take your hand away, nudge another pillow closer to him, and step back to try and work out where exactly Jake and the other boy are. Knowing Jake, you're going to need to rescue the other guy. 

Overriding Dirk's locks on the audio pickups in these rooms takes a minute, but gives you the data of two voices arguing in furious whispers in what the map in your mind tells you is the bathroom. They didn't lock the door, thankfully, and they both turn toward you as you open it—Jake with a look of barely-contained panic and relief that you actually bothered to come deal with this in person, and the other guy (John, Junior informs you through your open link to the net; he's such a helpful little spy) with an expression that goes from blank confusion to a weird mix of excitement and horror in maybe three seconds. 

So he knows who you are, you think, and that hypothesis is confirmed another second later as John stutters out a series of sounds that don't make any sense whatsoever, and then: "You were—you're him, AR, Hal—oh my god—" 

"Hal, for god's sake will you sort this ridiculous mess out—" Jake apparently decides that talking over John is the most logical way to get results from you. He's wrong, but you can understand the urge. 

Great, now they're both talking. You ignore that for the moment, looking John over instead. He doesn't look like a researcher or a historian, and at this point those are probably the only types of people who can recognize you on sight. (Well, and Dirk.) You could just be prejudiced because he looks young, though, maybe mid-twenties at the most, not much older than Jake and definitely just a bit younger than Dirk seems to be if you go purely by appearances.

(Junior is very helpfully sending you full files on John Egbert. Sebastian is sending you smaller chunks of info about him that are significantly more helpful and which you're still going to ignore for the moment.) 

The interesting thing here is that John's acquired a bloody nose from somewhere, and Jake's picked up a split lip that he didn't have on the last camera record of him. Interesting. 

"Did you two seriously try to fight each other first thing?" They're still keeping their voices down even as they talk at you and try to get you to listen, and since you don't bother with being quiet—what's the point? Dirk isn't going to wake up—your question easily overrides both Jake and John. 

"I didn't!" John is equal parts indignant and confused. You feel like he's confused a good fraction of the time. "As soon as I got up, he hit me." 

Jake's glare is poisonous. You're glad it's not directed at you. John doesn't seem to realize how close he is to getting punched again. "You took the Prince," he almost snarls. And then, in a much more wounded tone, "You were sleeping with him—" 

"He asked me to! I told you!" 

"Why would—" 

"I don't know, maybe because he hasn't slept for hundreds of years? He—" 

"He shouldn't want you, I'm the one who—"   
"All right, stop." You don't want Jake to have a meltdown here, and he's close to that, upset and confused and and scared for Dirk, ready to either fall apart or tear John to pieces. And John hasn't actually done a single thing wrong here. "Jake. Look at me." Stop trying to kill John through the strength of your death glare, is what you mean. 

It takes him a minute. 

"Dirk is fine." 

"He is not—" 

"I said stop. He'll be fine—have I never told you how long I've wanted him to get out of that damn thing? No? Sorry. Must've been one of the last Pages." You're an unrepentant liar. You don't talk about your thoughts on the Prince with anyone. 

"He wouldn't wake up," Jake points out, and even though he's already chewing on his lip you see that infinitesimal tremble of pure fear and worry. The unspoken corollary of that statement is that he isn't going to wake up. John catches the implication, too; his eyes go to you, face twisting in what you're going to interpret as guilt. 

"He isn't going to for a good twenty or so hours," you point out, and it's a good thing you can just switch off all outward signs of uncertainty because the next sentence isn't one you're at all sure about. "He'll be fine. Let him sleep. One of you—both of you, if you can handle not beating the crap out of each other—should go in, lie down with him again. It's late, you might as well sleep too."

"Uh." John actually freezes up when you look at him, mouth opening and shutting a few times before he continues. (How the hell does he know you? He's the next thing to in awe of you, you think, and even though you deserve that you don't think you look like you deserve it, unless he's struck dumb by red eyes and white hair.) "I'm not—I should—" A sigh, colored with both amusement and frustration with himself. "He's the Page—" a nod at Jake, who just frowns at him— "you're the Sovereign, I'm, uh..." He just shrugs instead of finishing. "Maybe I should go?" 

Jake nods. Then he stops himself, reluctantly shaking his head. 

You agree with the latter reaction. "The Prince didn't ask you to go, now did he? I've known him for long enough to know that he'll definitely be upset if he wakes up and you're gone, believe me." 

The look of relief that spreads across John's face is almost laughable, as is the wary look he gives Jake. Someone has some level of a crush on a certain sleeping Prince. Well, two somebodies, if you know Jake. Good. It'll give Dirk incentive to leave that fucking throne alone and unpowered. 

You step back out of the doorway, gesturing for them to follow and nodding at Dirk's sleeping form on the bed as they do. "Go on." 

And with one more mutually confused look at each other, they do. Dirk's on his side, and it takes a couple minutes of silent maneuvering for them to settle on the positioning of John behind him, arms wrapped around his shoulders, and Jake nestled up against his chest, as close as he can get.

You like the look of that much better than Dirk alone. Now, he at least looks safe. 

Dirk doesn't move during all of that. Once John and Jake are actually settled against him, he sighs in his sleep, shifting a bit and muttering one word. A name, and not either of theirs, although the vowel matches Jake's. You can just barely see John's twitch as he hears it, but there's none of the jealously you half-expect if he's mistaken it for Jake's name. Instead he just shakes his head, scooting forward a bit to put his mouth next to Dirk's ear and whisper something that sounds like "sorry." And, "it's okay." 

Hm. 

You wonder if he knows about Dave. 

You realize that now you at least know what Dirk's dreaming about.

You come to the decision that you have a few things to do, and that these three should be fine for the length of time you'll need to do them. You're careful to shut the door quietly on the way out, and tell it to stay locked unless it gets instructions to the contrary. 

Let them sleep in peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first two paragraphs of this are the best I've ever written


	5. Dirk

You wake up slow, and the human warmth around you is confusing. For a moment you think that it's got to have all been a stupidly complex dream—no, you didn't craft a throne to shape this piece of civilization, you never plugged yourself into it, you're going to open your eyes and it'll be your brother curled next to you because he's a dumbass who knows he'll be too tired to move shit off his bed when he comes home and leaves it anyway. And he'll fucking laugh at you if you tell him this dumbass dream, but you're probably going to do it anyway. Right after you shove him off the bed. 

But. 

The moment of consideration—of self-delusion—is just that. A moment. Then you (reluctantly) admit that no, you didn't just dream the last few centuries up. Dave is not here. Neither is a major chunk of everything else from back then. 

Which brings you back to the question: who the fuck is here? 

Two people. Both still asleep, you can tell from their breathing and the still-calm weight wherever you're in contact with them. (Everywhere, in other words, that's everywhere.) If you weren't so curious, you'd be content to stay put. Go back to sleep, not move for hours more or possibly for ever. This is. Good. But that damn question—who?—isn't going to let you do that, so after a minute or two more you sigh and open your eyes. 

Jake. 

You don't think you've ever seen him asleep before. Awake, he's always ready for anything, rarely if ever unmoving, but now he just looks...soft. Peaceful. Happy, even if there's a faint worry-line between his eyes. 

Poor Jake, you know you've scared him. He didn't deserve that. 

He's curled up to you as close as he can get, arms tangled up with yours even if they're not wrapped around you, and it takes longer to carefully extricate yourself than disconnecting from the throne did. (Well, at least it seems like it does.) You have to pull out of the guy behind you's grip too, as you sit up and turn to look at him. 

Ah. 

John. 

That almost makes sense. That makes no sense. The happy surge in your chest at recognising him makes the least sense of all. 

Did you ask him to be here? You remember telling him not to leave. Although you also remember...well, other things that didn't happen, last night, not unless time decided to flip itself around and run backwards just for you. But you must've asked him to stay. Last night you honestly thought you'd killed yourself, and if you were going to die you wanted...

The description of him that your mind supplies is surprisingly affectionate; what the actual fuck? 

Then again, he deserves the affection. 

Oh god you have problems. 

But then again, at least you aren't dead. 

"Dirk." 

That familiar tone snaps your head around, and there's no keeping the shock off your face. It's not just that he's reactivated the speakers; he's here. Hal is precisely how you remembered him, precisely as you designed him, a bleached-out mirror of you with a smile that's every bit as reassuring as it is genuine. 

So, not very. 

Whether or not the smile is false doesn't really matter, though. "Sovereign." 

The noise he makes is extremely annoyed and quite possibly rude. "Don't you dare, Prince. I just spent almost thirty hours soothing these two—" he gestures, not at you but at John and Jake, still asleep on either side of you— "when I didn't know myself if you weren't just going to go into a coma and not wake up at all. Use my goddamn name." The look he gives you suggests that he knows very well that he's being overdramatic and he doesn't care. At all. 

Fair enough. "Hal, then...but thirty hours? Really?" 

"Really." He shakes his head and looks down, running one hand through his hair in an uncomfortably familiar stress-reaction. Oh, you wish he wasn't so much like you. "Ten more and I was going to have to figure out whether or not to try stimulants on you, or put you back on the throne and wake you up that way—" 

"Don't." 

He looks up again at that simple word, and his faint smile is a hell of a lot more genuine than the one from before. And relieved. "Well, obviously not. You're awake." He hesitates for a moment, then adds, "I locked the door to the throne room. Actual locks, not electronic ones you could override. I'd give you the keys if you wanted them—"

"I don't. Don't give them to me." God but you're relieved about that as much as he obviously is. You could tell yourself that there's nothing you could do if he needed you to go back online, but you have to also admit that you don't think you could handle that. Not again. "And these two are...here...why?" You put one hand on John's shoulder, the other on Jake's. John mumbles something unintelligible and rolls his head towards you, and you can't help but smile. 

Hal is smiling too, you see when you look up at him. "You asked for John to stay," he points out. 

"I would've thought he'd leave, though. After the night." 

"You didn't wake up. And he cares about you too much to just go." Hal tilts his head a bit, looking at Jake or John instead of you. "They both do, really. See the bruises? They were fighting over who had the right to be stupidly in love with you, I think." 

He's right, at least about the two of them having marks, you see that when you look down. The rest of that statement? "You can't be serious." You don't deserve that. Not from somebody you just met, and not from somebody who's been around you as long as Jake has. 

"Trust me. I am." Hal shakes his head, leaning back in his chair and studying you, face not so much guarded as temporarily disconnected from his emotions. There are benefits to being an android. "They're both...attached to you. I mean, you can use the whole 'I'm an AI and you didn't program me to analyze this type of feelings' argument but then again, I've been collecting data and evolving for how long again? If I say they're in love with you, you can assume I'm probably right." 

The smile he gives you is very sweet. 

You say the first thing that comes into your mind, and you say it very quietly. "I'm not choosing between them, I hope you realize." 

Hal actually laughs in what sounds very like delight. "Good! Don't! I don't think they could handle your doing that anyway." He shakes his head, smiling for a second longer before the expression just wipes itself off his face as smoothly as a computer screen loading a different image. "We talked yesterday. While you were asleep." 

"Oh?" His tone doesn't say that there's anything to be worried about, but your immediate reaction is to worry about what exactly the topics of conversation might have been. You should really trust Hal more than you do, at this point. 

"Mhm. About if they could handle you not making a choice—that was a yes, by the way—and about other things. Jake tried to hit me. Well, not tried. I think he hurt his hand; John actually got upset at me for that." 

"What'd you do to deserve getting hit?" 

This time his grin is brief and a little bit predatory. "Said I'd keep you off that fucking throne by any means necessary, including locking you up while I figured out how best to permanently disable it. He's very much your Page; he'll fight anything to let you have what you want."

True. You know how Jake is, how he's been trained to be. "Including you." 

Hal just shrugs. "Including me. But John—did you actually talk to him? At all?" 

"A bit." 

"Do you realize how much he knows about us? Not just us but everything from before this." He flips his hands out, indicating everything around you—this room, the palace complex, this piece of the civilization that you've been shaping for a few centuries. "It's...weird." 

You're pretty sure that your memory may be missing a few pieces of last night, but you remember the explanation for that. "He transcribed and checked over parts of the archives. The oldest ones, about me and the throne." 

"And that got him curious enough to come see if you were really all it said you were." Hal rolls his eyes at you. "He told me that...I don't think you understand the kind of things he knows, though. It's not even what I'd expect to be recorded, it's—" He shakes his head, hesitating for a moment before shrugging again. "You code-locked almost everything about Dave, didn't you?" 

"Yeah." That decision made sense at the time. It hurt to think about him after he was gone, and even if obsessively going through all the recordings, all the information that'd been saved and catalogued—even if that made it go away for awhile, it let you remember him more clearly. Which was worse in the long run. 

Hal is watching you. When you don't say anything else, he asks, "All of it?" 

"You've been in the same network I was." You can hear the growl in your own voice, and it's a difficulty to stay quiet enough that you don't wake Jake and John. "You know what I did." Your brother isn't something you want to talk about. 

"Obviously I don't." Hal, on the other hand, is still as calm as ever. "Either the restrictions were weak enough that that kid could get through them—" 

"They aren't." 

"Or you missed some records—" 

"Trust me. I didn't." 

"Then Roxy might've left some physical records in the archives and he found those. Flash drives, notebooks, I don't know. But whatever it was, your new boyfriend knows a hell of a lot more about Dave—" 

If Hal says that name one more time you're going to lose it. 

"—than anyone who isn't in this room." Hal cocks his head slightly, considering you for a second. Maybe waiting for a response that you aren't going to give him. "If you're going to flip out at John for mentioning him—like you used to do to me—you should just tell him to leave as soon as he wakes up. Do it however you want to, but fucking do it, because he doesn't deserve for you to tear him apart because you refuse to get through the goddamn stages of grief—" 

"Stop. Talking." You find yourself mentally reaching for the bits of programming that would've helped force you to calm down, think of something else. They're not there, of course. "Just stop. He isn't—"

"Wasn't." Damn it, he's never going to be anything other than calm, it's not fucking fair... "He wasn't what? He wasn't my brother? If that's what you were going to say, fuck you so very much, Dirk." 

That was exactly what you were going to say. Hal's looking at you and you know he can read that on your face. 

You need to stop thinking. 

"If you look at shit that way, you shouldn't be anything to me," he says softly. "He was—was. Goddamnit, Dirk, he was as much my brother as you are, and you don't have a monopoly on loss but you need to fucking let him go—" 

"Shut up!" You almost scream it at him, and immediately cover your mouth with both hands. Jake sits up immediately, eyes dazed but already-worried, and even if John's slower to rouse his groan makes it very apparent that he's waking up, especially as Jake reaches past you to shove at him. 

"Fuck," Hal says, and you're almost certain that there's a note of disgust or annoyance in his voice. 

"Shut up, Hal," Jake snaps, and immediately invalidates that command by asking, "What in hell's name did you say to him? Dirk? Dirk, look at me—" 

Shit, you forgot what it was like to have absolutely nothing hooked into your head. Precisely zero things to focus on that's not your own goddamn thoughts. And Hal's touched on what you've spent a fuck of a long time using all assets available to you to not think about. 

"Dirk? Are you okay?" It's John asking this time. He's got up on his knees next to you on the bed, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. "Uh...Sovereign—" 

"Don't ask him," Jake snaps, glaring at Hal as he presses up against your other side, one arm going around your waist and the other finding your hand, gently working your deathgrip on the sheets loose and lacing his fingers into yours. "He's the walnut-brained asshole who doesn't have enough sense to eat a fucking rock when he opens his mouth." 

You really hate yourself for not being able to bring yourself to actually show any reaction to them. If anything you're pulling yourself in, trying not to touch them even though you need to be touched. They're not going to realize that you don't want them to pull back, though. You know that. 

You want Dave. You want Roxy. 

Oh, damn. 

But. 

They don't let you go. You keep expecting it, and it just doesn't happen. John and Jake hold you and keep talking, keep asking if you're okay and why you're not okay even though you literally cannot bring yourself to make a sound. They don't just give up. You don't know why they should be this patient with your goddamn stupid broken self, but whatever the reason is you are so thankful for it. 

Relaxing isn't a conscious choice. If it was you wouldn't be able to make it. It's a slow phase shift, taking you from stiff and trying to hide inside your skin to trying to fill the space between them, clutching at Jake's hand and groping blindly for John's. Your eyes are closed because the tears burn. You're aware that you're shaking only because John points it out and Jake tells him he's a bloody idiot and they both tell Hal to shut up when he tries to say something about you and meltdowns and the time before the fucking throne. 

Hal's right, isn't he? This isn't something you've never done before. Panicked, shut down, lost either ability or volition to function because you can't fucking handle yourself without help sometimes. The throne was partly designed to help. 

Jake and John might as well have been designed to help. They're exactly what you need. 

God, you shouldn't be this in love. 

When you manage to take a full breath and blink your eyes clear, Hal is smiling almost apologetically at you. If that little shit pushed you into this state to make a point, you're going to murder him. Or maybe you're just projecting what you want to see, an excuse to be pissed at him. You need to say something, figure out which it is. 

But right now you're not going to do anything other than stay still for a bit longer. Just a bit. Jake's got a good look at your face, the concern's gone out of him because he knows you well enough to see when you're okay. He can tell John. You can just. Sit. With them holding you. 

Just for a couple more minutes.


	6. John

You don't believe in telepathy as something all people have. Actually, you're almost certain that you're not even a little psychic; you've been accused of obliviousness too many times in your life to think you ever know what anybody else thinks. But Jake catches your eyes when you look up from Dirk for a second, and maybe knowing what he thinks you both should do isn't telepathy, but it's definitely something. 

Dirk hasn't made a sound since he shouted at Hal to stop talking, but he makes one as you and Jake both lean in to kiss him, one on each cheek—a soft, amazed and amazingly pleased noise. Out of the corner of your eye you see the Sovereign open his mouth, reconsider, and snap it shut again before anyone can tell him to shut up. 

Dirk's hand tightens around yours, but it's Jake he turns to, reaching up with his free hand to hold Jake steady so he can give him a careful but deep kiss. Now Jake's the one making a noise, a deep hum that's just you half-hear, half-feel through your contact with Dirk. 

You're. Almost. A little bit disappointed. 

Then Dirk lets go of your hand and turns away from Jake, reaching up to cup the back of your head and gently pull you over. 

Oh. 

"I knew him first," he whispers, and it sounds a hell of a lot like an apology but you don't have time to tell him not to be sorry before he kisses you. Maybe he's trying to make up for going to you second, because his kiss for you is deep and sweet and seems to last more or less forever. 

(And Jake shifts slightly, before Dirk pulls back, and you remember that his arm's still touching yours because you're both holding Dirk, you're both—) 

Your mind stutters to a complete halt as Dirk laughs a little against your mouth, and doesn't even try to restart until he does pull away. You definitely understand the look on Jake's face, confusion and joy and excitement all mixed together. That, you can feel on your own face. 

The Prince looks at you, and he nods, and he takes your hand again as he looks back at Jake for a moment. When he speaks, though, he's looking at Hal, and his words are both causal and directed at no one in particular. "I think I'm starving." 

You blink. Jake just looks confused. 

Hal laughs, though, and gets to his feet. "That's understandable," he says. "Look, there's a kitchen—" he nods at one of the doors that you haven't bothered to open yet, "it's probably got food in it, you can just step outside and ask Sebastian to have some sent if there isn't, one of you can make breakfast. I think I have some more things to take care of." He gives Dirk a look that you can't quite interpret, adds, "By the way, if you don't talk to him, I'm going to do it, and we both know you'd just hate that," and gets to his feet. 

No one moves until the door shuts behind him. 

Then Jake shrugs, glancing over at you. "Any objections towards me making breakfast, then?" 

Dirk looks over at you too, before he shakes his head. "Not from me—" 

"I'm good so long as you're okay with me cooking later." Morning food is just not your specialty. Anything else, you can do, and pretty well too, but breakfast? Please no. "If you need help—" 

"Nope!" You're pretty sure that's the first smile you've gotten from Jake. "I can handle this by myself, it's fine." He leans over for one more kiss with Dirk, then slides off the bed, one hand raking through his hair as he heads for the kitchen. 

Dirk watches him until the door swings shut, then looks at you. "All right." The look of pure trepidation on his face is kind of worrying, and the fact that he chooses now to let go of your hand, carefully pull out of your grip, and scoot to sit facing you, a few feet away, isn't really helping either. "...um. Fuck." 

You wait for him to actually say more than that for a few seconds, but when he just opens and shuts his mouth a few times and twists up handfuls of the sheets, you give up on that plan. "I'm going to guess this is about Hal saying you had to talk unless you wanted him to?" You have a noticeable lack of drawing-people-out skills. 

But hey, he nods, so maybe you're doing it right anyway.

"Yeah. That." For a second you think you're going to need to prompt him again, like some kind of extra-shitty therapist, but then Dirk sighs. "I'm almost willing to have him talk through this just so I don't have to, you know?" 

"I...have no idea what you're talking about, Dirk." 

"I know." He shakes his head, both hands clenching around their handful of blanket before he says anything else. "...Dave." 

"Your brother?" You know about Dave. Well, you know who he was, and you know that he's dead (of course he is, has been for literal hundreds of years), and that, according to some of the records you read, his death fucked up Dirk for...maybe decades. From the way his face twists when he says Dave's name, he's still fucked up over this. "Hal wanted you to talk to me about him?" 

Dirk nods, then almost immediately shakes his head. "He—" His sigh is more frustrated this time. "Not exactly. I'm—" 

He stops again, finally letting go of the blankets and wrapping his arms around himself, head bowing. 

"Dirk?" Oh fuck, you've done something wrong again. Maybe it's not the right thing to do, but you put your hands on his shoulders, hoping that he'll look up at you. "Dirk, we don't have to talk about it, it's fine—" 

He shakes his head and you shut up. It's still another second before he does look up, though, and he's very carefully controlling his expression now. 

"I," he says, slowly and with every appearance of calm (which you don't believe for one second), "I can't deal with talking about. Him. About Dave. You can talk to the Sov—Hal. You can talk to Hal, he'll fucking tell you that I'm—I can't be rational about this. I'm sorry. I can't." Dirk's face twists up in what might be actual, physical pain, he closes his eyes, but he keeps talking, words falling faster out of his mouth and getting progressively less understandable. "I'm sorry, I—you and me and Hal, that's the only people who know he fucking existed, I thought I locked up everything about him but I obviously didn't, you know about him—I said things to Hal, when he tried to talk to me about Dave, you don't understand, I told him I'd—deactivate him, wipe his memory and start from scratch, kill him, I'm sorry but I ca—can't promise I wouldn't say that or worse to you if—" 

"Dirk!" He gasps and flinches when you say his name, but when you wrap your arms around him and pull him up close to you he doesn't protest, just presses up against you, burying his face in your neck. He's shaking, too—damn, if someone had told you a week ago that you'd be planning to kick a four-hundred-year-old android's ass for any reason, let alone because he pressured the goddamn Prince into starting a conversation he's not mentally okay with...okay you've lost the thread of that thought, other than you're really angry at Hal right this second. "Dirk, it's okay." 

You get a muffled, wet-sounding laugh from him. "No." 

"Why not? You think I can't stay off the subject if it's going to mess you up like this?" 

"...I don't know." He sighs as you shift to pull him into a position where he can lean on you and not have it be awkward as fuck, relaxing just a bit. He doesn't pull away from you at all yet, though. "It's why none of them know. Hal, he knows because he was there, I can't do anything about him, but everyone else? I fucking wiped Dave out of the archives, the records, everything, because I'm too much of...whatever I am, to talk about him." 

He missed a couple, but you're not going to say that. "So I don't talk about him. If I fuck up—" which you hope you won't, you don't want to see him this upset ever again— "you...say whatever you're going to say, and I deal with it and shut my mouth next time." 

"It's not that easy..." But he sounds unsure, like it's himself he's trying to convince. 

"Yeah, it actually is." You only have to tilt your head a little to kiss the top of his head. His hair's soft. "If you'd want to leave me if I talked about him—" 

Dirk's hands tighten on your arms, and he shakes his head just a bit. "Fuck no. I'm afraid I'd scare you off if I got angry about it..." 

Okay, you have to laugh. "You? You're not even a little intimidating. You know that, right?" 

"What." 

"You're—" Ooh, time for words. You're horrible with words. "Like a display piece. Perfect. Important. Probably tough but you seem like I could definitely take you in a fight if I had to—" 

Dirk is laughing into your neck, and it tickles. You pull him back to give him a mock-irritated look. 

He returns it, in a slightly different flavor. You think he's trying to look either angry or fearsome. It's not working. "I could kick your ass," he growls, then shakes his head, choking back more laughter. "Jake would kill us both if we actually tried to see who's a better fighter, though." 

"Oh," Jake says from behind you, "don't be so all-fired sure of that, Dirk—I'm sure we could patch up whatever damage you two managed to inflict." 

You can't help but smile guiltily at him before you point out, "Especially since there's no way I'm risking actually hurting him. I'd have to kick my own ass for that."

"Hmm. Good point." Jake grins back at you, waiting for you to let Dirk go before he pulls the Prince to his feet. "Come eat," he orders, glancing at Dirk's face before shaking his head and pushing him towards the door. "And stop getting yourself so bloody worked up over things—you know you're not adjusted to not having the throne's feedback mechanisms, stop starting conversations you can't deal with without them." 

Dirk stops walking for a second, his face going completely blank. "Oh." 

"Oh." You echo him, because...that makes quite a lot of sense. 

"Yes, 'oh.'" Jake just shakes his head and shoves gently at Dirk's shoulder until he actually steps through the door. He holds it open for you, too, then nods at the stove and the pile of pancakes there. "After due consideration, I've come to the conclusion that you possibly shouldn't allow me in the kitchen unsupervised." 

Dirk is just staring at the food. "Jesus, Jake, did you—" 

"Use the whole box of mix?" He grins again, moving to perch on one of the stools at the counter. "...yes." 

Yeah, that's a lot of pancakes. You look around and realize that you have absolutely no idea where the plates might be here. Not that it seems to matter to Dirk...he's already sitting on the counter, within arm's reach of the pancakes, with what looks like an entire pancake in his mouth. 

The look he gives you is completely unrepentant. 

You swallow the laugh that tries to bubble up and grab a couple pancakes of your own. You're pretty willing to bet that there's not going to be all that many left over.


	7. Jake

Dirk changes, over the next month or so. There are more breakdowns (which you expected, even if John and Dirk are surprised by them; years ago you talked Hal into explaining some of the workings of the throne to you, and you know that the effects on his mind were significant), a good bit of confusion on Dirk's part as he readjusts to living like a person, and even more of you and John working out how exactly to handle living with him. And each other. 

It's not as hard to get used to as one might think. The worst scuffle ends with Dirk getting impatient with your and John's bickering at the dinner table and simply picking up his plate, dumping most of his mashed potatoes onto you and pouring the gravy over John's head. He apologized afterwards, too, as well as he could through his helpless laughter. 

Actually, the hardest part to get used to is waking up alone, you think. You've managed that anyway, though, because on the occasions that he leaves the bed before you, it's strange as hell to wake up without him. 

That's this morning, though—you wake up because something is indefinably wrong, and when you're conscious enough, you realize that the something is Dirk, not being next to you. He's been up a while, too—John's shifted away from you, curled up with his forehead pressed to the wall. (Why he does that you'll never understand, but if he isn't cuddled up to Dirk he invariably rolls to the wall and settles like that. You're already entertaining the notion of moving the bed out two feet or so and enjoying the consequences. Then again, he doesn't deserve that.) 

"Dirk?" Despite the automatic spike of worry, you keep your voice low as you sit up. The worry's unnecessary, of course. He's still in the room, already dressed in a clean shirt and trousers and perched on the arm of the chair, trying unsuccessfully to capture all of his hair in a ponytail. (Hal has a scientific explanation for why it's grown so fast. Dirk listened to said explanation, then pointed out that he doesn't care, he just wants it a bit longer so it's manageable.) "Do you need some help, love?" 

He just gives you a distracted grin and a quick head-shake. "I've got it. Wake John up." 

That's a matter of a few more-or-less gentle shoves and pulling all the blankets to your side when he groans and tries to mummify himself in them. Since Dirk still hasn't got his hair to cooperate by the time you accomplish it, you get up and take the hairtie away from him, noting the minute tremor in his hands as you smooth his hair down to pull it back. "...what are we doing that you're nervous about, Dirk?" 

"We're not doing anything." But the emphasis falls entirely on the first word, and he leans back into your hands. You're careful and as slow as you can be, putting his hair into the ponytail, and by the time you finish he sighs and reluctantly elaborates. "I spoke to Hal. He's meeting me at the throne room in a bit." 

Your voice is not connecting properly with your brain. All that comes out of your mouth is a strangled, incoherent noise. 

John, however... "Dirk, don't you dare, you can't—" 

"Stop." He rolls his head back, almost overbalancing until you move your hands onto his shoulders. The upside-down look he gives you is somewhere between exasperated and amused. "If the Sovereign thought I was planning to reconnect to that thing, don't you think he'd tell you before I had a chance to do it?" 

"Probably," you have to admit. That was still the most terrifying moment since you walked in and he was asleep and nothing you could do would wake him. "What the bloody fuck are you planning, then?" 

His shoulders move under your hands in a shrug, and you're (almost uncomfortably) aware that you're the only thing keeping him from toppling at the moment. "Gonna dismantle it." 

John's faster to speak than you, again. "The throne? You can do that?" 

"I built it." Another shrug, and he pulls away from your grip, resettling himself on the arm of the chair, one hand going back to check your arrangement of his hair. "It's durable, not impenetrable." 

"And Hal can't do it?" you ask carefully, sitting back down on the bed as John heads for the closet. "Because I'd just as rather not have you near—that, again." 

"You think I'd choose it over you?" His smile is tired, but surprisingly understanding. "Really?" 

"No—" Well... "I don't know." 

"He's not going to do anything stupid." John comes back out of the closet, buttoning his shirt. "Mostly because I won't let him, and you won't let him, and Hal won't let him..." 

Dirk stares at him for a moment before pointing out gently, "If you started at the bottom you wouldn't do that wrong, you know." 

John blinks, looks down at his misbuttoned shirt, and gives you a despairing look as he starts undoing it again. "Fuck...anyway, I'm coming with you. Jake, maybe you should get dressed?" 

"I mean, you don't have to." Dirk could not possibly look more like he's attempting to seem whilst internally panicking. "I'd definitely prefer both of you coming, but I can handle this—" 

"No, you can't." John's finally fixed his shirt, and he steps over to kiss Dirk's forehead. "You want breakfast, or no?"   
"I'd rather stretch out my not-vomiting streak a little longer, if it's okay." His half-sarcastic smile does absolutely nothing to make that statement seem like a joke. "It might not actually make a difference, but hey." 

John frowns and looks at you, eyebrows raising in what you're going to take as a request for assistance. Unfair. You don't know what to say any more than he does. You still get up, grab a fairly-clean shirt off the dresser and swap it for the one you're wearing, and come to sit down on the other arm of the chair. 

(Oh good lord how does Dirk do this.) 

"Make the Sovereign do it," you suggest, because it's the most obvious answer. "He must want to make it safe as much as you do—" 

Dirk snorts. "You make it sound like flipping the safety catch on a gun." 

"Well, still." 

"He can't do it." 

"Why not?" Damn it, if John's going to have you come get Dirk to talk he could at least let you ask the questions. But then again that's the precise thing you were going to ask.   
"I designed it to be unopenable by force. EMP, hackers—it's supposed to stand up to anything short of a nuclear detonation, and assuming it wasn't ground zero it'd probably handle that too." He shrugs, hands going out. "It's made to only open for me, and as close as Hal comes to being me on the occasions he chooses to he still can't fool the levels of biosensors I built in as safeguards—" 

He stops, maybe because he's run out of air. Crosses his arms in front of him, bows his head, takes a barely-shaky breath. "Fuck." 

"Dirk." You wait for him to look at you. It takes a full minute. "You don't have to do this now." 

"It's never going to get any easier." 

You do not for a moment believe that, but you can tell by the look on his face that he does. It'd be possible to talk him out of this, John would almost certainly back you up here and Dirk is afraid enough to let himself be convinced...but you know him. He can't let things go, won't let this go until he's worked himself up into a worse breakdown than the ones you and John can deal with, maybe worse than even Hal can handle. Maybe he doesn't strictly need to permanently disabled the throne that he chained himself to by choice, but. It's the best thing. 

You lean across to kiss his cheek, and stand up. "Is there a reason we're waiting, then?" 

Hal is waiting, like Dirk said he'd be, leaning against the wall and tossing a padlock from hand to hand. You envy his ability to conceal any iota of anxiety he's harbouring. "You don't have any kind of sense of time," he remarks as Dirk stops in front of the door. "You said five minutes." 

"Couldn't make myself come alone." Dirk shrugs, rubs one palm across his face—his hands are shaking again—and pushes the door open. 

Hal glances at John, at you, at Dirk, and gestures for you to proceed, shutting the door as he trails behind. You hear the electronic locks whir and click shut. "There's tools there for you," he says quietly, but Dirk's already bypassed the box and gone to kneel at the back of the throne, running his hands across it until he finds some invisible seam there. 

You didn't even know there was a panel there, and you didn't expect the flat black screen and bank of steady red lights there. Dirk sets the panel aside, and hesitates for a few seconds before laying his palm flat against the black screen.   
His flinch is barely noticeable, but you and John make matching sounds of concern as he pulls his hand back and examines the spot of blood welling up at the base of his wrist. "Calm down." He doesn't turn around as the lights begin flickering to green. "I put that there. It's all right." 

Hal is the only one to answer. "Someone's not calm?" 

"Shush." Something in the mechanism beeps, and the screen flashes white before resolving into a digital number-pad. Dirk types in four digits, and the entire back face of the throne slides down, into the floor you assume, revealing a slightly anticlimactic array of motherboards and cables. "The only calm one here is you." 

"False. And I don't know if you remember it, but those have sharp—" 

"I remember." He shows absolutely no caution as he starts pulling the motherboards, stacking them beside him. A few of the cables come too, and he coils them neatly and sets them down. "You think I forget bleeding? Especially when you used to think the best reaction to me doing stupid shit was to laugh about it—" 

"I'm capable of admitting my own past errors, Dirk." 

"Good. I don't think you learned that from me." He sits back on his heels. There's seven or eight pieces of circuitry next to him, maybe four bundles of cable, and he gestures at those with a hand that's dripping blood. "...put those somewhere I can't get at them." 

Hal tilts his head slightly, not moving as John steps past him to kneel next to Dirk. "Destroy them?" 

Dirk actually flinches more at that than he did at the blood sample. "No. You can destroy what's left inside if you want to, feel free to break it so you're satisfied it'll never work again, but those—those have some data I think I might want one day." 

"One day." Hal nods, puts one hand in the middle of your back to push you towards Dirk, and gathers up the motherboards. "I'll be back in a bit, then." 

"Bring a first aid kit," John says ruefully, nodding down at Dirk's hands as you sit down on the other side of him. 

"It doesn't hurt." But he hisses softly as you take his other hand. It's not bleeding very much, but some of the little punctures in his fingers look deep. 

"Stupid Prince," you tell him, and he looks up and smiles. 

"Not anymore, I'm not."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is complete. If you come here and there's more than seven chapters, I am a liar.


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did I say I was done? I lied.

It's six years before you ask Hal for the memory cores, but he knows exactly what you're talking about when you do. You've already talked this over with John and Jake, taken turns with John telling Jake about your brother and how much losing him fucked you up. Cried and hated yourself for it and had both of them hold you, talk you into believing that you didn't deserve your own hatred.

Convincing them that you needed to go through the old video files you'd saved took a while. Trying to get them to let you watch them alone took longer, and was, ultimately, futile—John's taught Jake a few lessons about not letting you get your way, over the years, and they both seem to feed off each other's stubbornness sometimes. They're going to be with you to watch the videos, and while part of you absolutely hates the fact that you're going to have to share memories of your brother and let the two guys you love more than anything see you break down again (because you will, you know you will, you're not going to be able to hold yourself together), a larger part is so goddamn relieved you want to cry. 

You do not cry. You text Hal, tell him that it's time to stop hiding in his control room like an artificial spider on a constructed web and come up to your room. With the motherboards. Then you text him again because he immediately sends a flurry of messages back, mostly calling your sanity into question again. Then you text him _again,_ after convincing him you're really serious, changing what you're asking for from bringing the motherboards and a laptop to plug them into, to asking him to just download all the video files and bring that instead. 

John takes away the phone before you can change what you want another time. You would have gotten it back, but Jake's already pulling you back to sit on the bed, wrapping himself around you in a way that should be totally ineffective as a hold but can still near-completely immobilize you, through the virtue of your still being as hungry to be touched as you were the day you disconnected from the throne. Relaxing against him isn't something you really think about, just something that happens, and a minute later John comes back and nudges at Jake until he gets a spot where he can wrap his arms around you. 

"On a scale of one to ten, how bad is this going to be?" John asks it in a whisper almost against your ear, reaching up to pull your hair out of the ponytail you keep it in so he can comb his fingers through it. It's meant to relax you, and damn does it work. 

You still consider possible answers to his question for a moment, long enough for Jake to shift, pressing against you and pushing John's hands aside so he can take a turn petting your hair. Jake's quicker than John, softer, no less reassuring. 

"Eight," you say, finally, letting your head roll onto John's shoulder and wincing as the movement makes Jake accidentally tug at your hair a little too hard. "Eight and a half. Maybe nine. I can't calculate shit when I'm a variable, and I'm damn near the only variable here...bad, anyway." 

Jake goes still when you say that. "Dirk..." Somehow, he still hasn't processed how little you've gotten past Dave. Even with how much trouble you have explaining anything about it, Jake doesn't really understand. Or he didn't. He might now, though, judging by the expression you see on his face when you look over at him. "Are you entirely sure this is a good idea?"

You can't help but snort and settle further into both John and Jake's embrace. "I never said it was in the first place, so...no." 

"We've dealt with solid tens before," John murmurs, tilting his head just enough to lay a gentle kiss on the side of your forehead. "We can handle this, right? You'll be okay. You don't have to do this—" 

"No, I really think I do."

"— _but_ , if you're going to do it—"

"I am." 

"—you're going to be okay. We've seen you through worse." John blinks at you, kisses your face again. You really admire his ability to brush off your interruptions. Also his ability to properly punctuate with kisses. The only downside is that he's done talking, and thus, done kissing, for the moment at least. 

Jake huffs, winding his fingers through your hair and tugging gently, until you lean your head onto him instead. (John tries to stifle a laugh and only somewhat succeeds.) He just stares at you for a second, maybe expecting more explanation than you're planning to provide. Instead, you let your eyes half-close, focus on going limp between him and John and memorizing every fleck of lighter or darker green in his almost-olive eyes, and wait. 

You love Jake, but sometimes he's an asshole. He makes you wait for at least fifteen seconds before he huffs again, louder and more emphatic, and kisses where your jaw meets your throat. "I still think this might be an awful idea," he says without really pulling away. His breath on your neck tickles; it's hard to stay still. "As in, the sort of idea you ought to reconsider?" 

_Asshole._ He knows you don't want to say no to to him when he's kissing you like that. "Nope. I already called Hal; do you really think I'm going to back down from that?" 

John laughs. 

Jake actually chokes, snorts, and pulls away to look at you more carefully. You lean back against John, resisting the urge to turn when he starts nuzzling the nape of your neck. 

"I could talk Hal into believing that I talked you out of this," Jake says, finally, nestling back against you and bumping his forehead gently against yours as you wrap your arms around him. "I've talked you out of things before, after all." 

"Mm." Tempting. But no. "You don't need to talk me out of this." 

"You sure?" John asks the question this time, adjusting his hold on you so Jake can get a little closer. "I mean, I think you can handle this, if it's what you want, but we—" 

" _Stop..._ " You draw the word out longer than it needs to be, ending it only when John starts trying to muffle his giggling with the back of your shirt. He'll get Jake started in a minute, probably. "I want to see him." 

"Dave." John, again, and it's not a question but you still nod.

"Why?" Jake asks, and you have to think for a moment, try to order your words. 

You choose them oh-so-carefully, and you're still not sure if these are right. "I...miss him. It's fucking stupid—" 

Two protests at that statement: Jake's surprised and almost loud, John's just a negative murmur against your ear. 

"It _is._ It's been forever, it's—it's stupid." There's a lump in your throat; it almost hurts to swallow. "I don't know if I remember him. If I don't, that's—that's fine, I'll look and see that he isn't—wasn't—what I remember, have Hal take the fuckin' videos and—I don't know, archive them. Something." Keep them. Preserve them. You want to sob at the thought of Hal actually destroying your carefully-hoarded memories. 

John rubs his palms flat against your shoulders, pressing just hard enough to distract you from your mind. "But what if you do remember him?" he asks softly, tracing vague circles on your back as he waits for an answer. "What then?"

"Same thing." You don't need to think about that answer, but you do close your eyes as you give it. "I watch them. Some of them. I—Hal takes 'em away and locks them back up when I'm done. I swear." 

John sighs. After a second, he says (not to you), "Is he crying?" 

You don't even know the answer to that one. The warm weight in your arms shifts, moves, and you feel the feather-light touch of Jake's lips on your cheeks and eyelids, quick and soft and gone too quick.

"Not yet he isn't." More kisses, until you finally have to smile at the soft touches and he moves down to kiss the corner of your mouth. "Although I wouldn't want to lay a wager against it happening at some point in the near future." 

"Would that be betting for me or against me?" you ask, opening your eyes and raising an eyebrow at Jake when he pulls back a little. "Because I think we had rules about betting against me. Like, all of us agreed, no betting against Dirk because that's the best way to get him to be a contrary fuck and cheat—"

John reaches over your shoulder and grabs the front of Jake's shirt, yanking him forward into one of the most awkward kisses you've ever been a part of. It's fairly effective at getting you to shut up, though, and you definitely wouldn't call it unpleasant. 

It lasts until Jake pulls back for air and mock-glares at John. "A little warning, maybe?" 

"Hey, if you had enough sense to do it yourself I wouldn't be playing peacemaker." You can feel John's weight shift as he shrugs, and you don't have to look to know that's he's got the most innocent smile on his face right now. "We all know Dirk likes the sound of his own voice enough to keep talking until _somebody_ shuts him up—" 

Jake rolls his eyes, gets ahold of your shoulders, and more-or-less picks you up and turns you to face John, pushing you forward. You take some pride in making this kiss less physically awkward than the one a second ago, but then again you were expecting this. John keeps trying to talk for a second, then just dissolves into half-contained laughter as he kisses you back. 

He starts tickling along your ribs when you pull away from him. Jake is no help whatsoever. You're almost out of breath from laughing when Hal knocks and opens the door without waiting for an answer. 

Well, you did invite him here. 

John backs off as soon as Hal steps in, and it only takes a couple seconds for you to disentangle from him and Jake, scooting to put just a little distance between them and yourself. "Hey, Hal." 

"Hey, yourself." He doesn't look directly at you until he sets the laptop he's carrying on the bed in front of you, and even then it's just a quick glance that's almost too brief to let you see the slight expression of concern on his face. "I'm going to assume these two already did their best to talk you out of this?" 

"Yes." Okay, when all three of you manage to say the exact same thing at the same time, it's an occasion to be remembered. 

Hal blinks, shakes his head, and plugs a memory stick into the port on the side before stepping back. "Well...I guess I probably wouldn't have any better luck." He hesitates for a second before asking, slowly, "Do you want me to leave, then?" 

Partly because he so obviously expects you to say yes, you find yourself shaking your head as you pull the computer close enough to select a file from the ones on the memory stick. "Stay if you want to. I'm guessing you already watched these—"

But he's shaking his head, and you believe him. 

"All right. Stay and watch if you want." You pick a file at random and open it. It's just security footage, low-quality and soundless, but _damn_ , if the sight of him doesn't hit you like an actual punch. 

"Dirk?" Jake asks, in the silence left after your gasp.

"Calm down." You haven't taken your eyes off the screen. It's just Dave, sitting at a cafeteria table, alternating between filling out paperwork, eating, and talking to some guy whose face you don't remember. He doesn't look up at the camera, might not even know it's there. Your chest hurts, but it's not an entirely bad sensation. "I'm...at four, right now. I'm okay." 

The video freezes, displays an "end of file" message, and collapses back to the selection screen. You choose another, not even bothering to look at the file name or date. 

This one's clearer, with audio that you can't bring yourself to focus on. Dave's sitting on the floor of the room that you still have nightmares about sometimes, leaning against the throne and looking up at you, stroking the feathers of a raven that's perched on his shoulder—one of his pets, one of his friends, how the fuck could you forget them, the crows and ravens and jays and all the fucking _birds_ he befriended and cared for? 

You're in this one too, and that highlights how old this video must be, because he looks the same age as you, almost. It had to have been before the stasis functions of the throne put so much of a gap between him and you...

Dave laughs, looks up at the camera, and makes a face at it, and oh god that _hurts._

John lays a hand on your shoulder, and you shrug him off. "S-six. Goddamnit, calm. The fuck. Down." 

"Six of ten isn't exactly ideal," Hal points out softly, then holds up his hands to deflect your slightly-teary glare. "Sorry. I'm sorry." 

"Six is fucking fine," you tell him, and tap the keyboard, exiting out of that video. You don't want to see him in the throne room. 

God, there's so many files. Too many. 

As you hesitate, Hal leans over to pull the memory stick out, and suddenly there's none. "Shit, Hal—" 

"Wait. I've got more." He tosses you the stick, and doesn't even bother to grin as you fumble catching it, just shoving another stick in. This one's red instead of black, and looks like an older model. 

For a second a screen pops up asking for a password, and just as quickly disappears, before you have time to do more than make a move towards the keyboard. You look over at Hal just in time to catch his eyes flashing with the tail end of wireless communications. 

"Why—" 

"It's not yours. This one's mine." Hal doesn't move, doesn't even look over at the screen, but his eyes are lit up, and nests of folders are opening, neatly labeled and dated subfiles scrolling down to select and open one, pulling up a paused video. Dave, sitting at what might be a desk, looking directly into the camera. "You haven't seen these." 

"I've seen all the footage of him." But you don't recognize the look on Dave's face—that's his room, his setup for filming shit, but his wry expression doesn't fit with anything you remember. 

Hal just shrugs, all emotion wiping off his face. "Not this. He had a video journal, Dirk. Not that he ever used it. I think he deleted most of the entries, and I couldn't retrieve anything...anyway, he gave me the password. Wh—" 

He almost says _when he died._ Catches himself with a pause no one but you could notice. 

"—later, I took the hard storage. He never stored them online." Hal shrugs, spreads his hands, and nods at the laptop. "This was the last entry, but I think it might be the most important one. Do you want to watch it?" 

Well. Fuck. 

"Yeah. Hit play, Hal." You can feel John shift uneasily next to you, and Jake tries to touch your shoulder, but you push him back without taking your eyes off the screen as Dave unfreezes, finishing the movement of pushing his hair back. 

He grins at the camera, and Hal jacks the volume up a bit so you can actually understand as he starts to talk. 

_"Hey, Dirk. I mean, if you see this one I'm fucked, because this is gonna be fucking stupid. Feelings and all that shit. Hal's probably going to think it's hilarious when he watches it. Which is good, I guess—might as well make the AI laugh, prove he's got a sense of humor, right?"_

Dave shrugs, leans back in his chair, tipping it back to balance on two legs. 

_"Might have to go for more than one try on this, though. I mean,_ I _don't even know what I'm saying here, alright? It's just...I'm leaving tomorrow. Like, not for good, I'll be gone two weeks at the most and it should be under a week, but fuck. You know how long it's been since I've been more than twenty minutes away from you? I think the last time was before you built that—thing. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing, I'm so proud of you, bro—"_

(That's the tipping point. You're crying now, you can feel the tears. Eight.) 

_—"but look, I'd be proud of you for any of the shit you've done, building Hal or programming the base for everything that runs this place, that shit was beyond anything I'd ever be able to do. Fuck, I'd be proud of you if you didn't do any of that. I love you, Dirk, okay? Not the machines, not what you've done, I love_ you." 

"Love you too, man," you hear yourself whisper. Fuck. Nine. Onscreen Dave sighs, shakes his head, and brings the legs of his chair back to the floor. 

_"Look at me, getting all fucking sappy. This one's getting deleted, I swear to god...anyway, I just feel so fucked up right now, it's goddamn stupid, you know? I'm coming back."_

"You're not." _Ten._

_"It's just a couple days. I...I'm too dependent on you, it fucking sucks because I make you depend on me when I do this shit, and I'm sorry for that."_

Another sigh, and you struggle to take a breath that doesn't hitch in the middle. 

_"I should leave for longer than this trip. I should go and make you come to me, Dirk, because I don't think you're ever going to come live in the world again if someone doesn't force you to. I should, and I don't think I will because I'm so fucking afraid you wouldn't do it."_

"I would have." You can't see his face, there're too many tears in your eyes and scrubbing them away doesn't work. "Fuck, Dave..." 

_"Don't worry. I wouldn't leave you."_

You can _hear_ the cocky grin in his words, and you're at a fucking thousand, you're beyond the arbitrary scale you laid out for John and Jake, you're _done._ One blind shove sends the laptop off the bed—the video's still playing, a little muffled but the damn thing's tough—and as Jake or John tries to get a hold of you and soothe you out of the blind pain-spiral you're caught in, you twist out of their grip and stagger towards where you think the door is, biting your lip to keep the sobs inside. 

Two steps. That's how far you get before you trip and hit the floor, tasting blood. Getting up is too fucking hard to even think about—you push yourself up to sit against whatever sturdy surface is next to you, pull your legs up to your chest, and try to be as small as you can so you can stop existing while you cry. 

Someone's hands are on you almost immediately, gentle but strong enough to pull your arms loose and pull you over so you're leaning against someone instead of something. "You're _bleeding,_ Dirk," Hal says, wiping at your mouth with one hand and wrapping his free arm around your shoulders. "...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—" 

You have to open your eyes. Has he ever apologized to you before? Has he ever touched you this much before? The question you ask isn't either of those, and it's not all that coherent either. "Are—aren't y-you going to st-stain your chassis—" 

Hal blinks at you, looks down at his hand, and wipes most of the blood off on his shirt. "Skin's replaceable, it's—goddamnit, Dirk, don't deflect." 

"I'm going to fu-fucking break if I don't..." A whisper's all you can manage, but Hal nods anyway, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you up to his chest. 

He isn't John or Jake. You almost freeze up, but after half a second you very carefully put your arms around him. He's more angular than they are, you're almost painfully aware that he's modeled off _you,_ but you still relax. Slowly. 

"I'm so sorry," he says again, after a moment.

You don't know what you want to say to that. Once again, your mouth's not all the way connected to your brain. "...'s a fuckin' lie. He said it, then he left." 

"I know. Don't you think I _know?_ He didn't want to leave you, Dirk." 

"Us." 

"Oh." Hal goes completely still. 

" _Us._ " There are more eloquent ways to make your point, but fuck them. 

"...us. He didn't want to leave us. He wanted _this_ for you. He'd be happy you are like you are, Dirk, I promise you that. He'd be proud of you." 

You were almost back to normal, but that sets you off into a sobbing, shuddering mess again, and after a minute or two of trying to calm you, Hal picks you up like you weigh nothing and sets you back where you belong, between John and Jake. Even with them both soothing you, it takes what seems like a long time to calm and quiet down. 

You're tired. More tired than you have a reason for being. 

Hal pushes something into your hand, folding your fingers shut around it and closing his hands over yours. "I should have given you this so long ago." 

The memory stick. Dave's memory stick. "I couldn't've watched them before." 

"I know. Still shouldn't've kept them to myself." He shakes his head, backs up a few paces. "The password is 'brother,' and your and his birthday...I'm sorry. I love you, Dirk. Maybe I don't trust you enough, but I do love you." 

You could point out that he isn't programmed for love. You could tell him to take the memory stick back, please take it back, you don't know what you're going to do with it. 

You're not that stupid. Not that much of an asshole. 

"Love you too, Hal." And you know that the kiss John presses against your jaw is, at least a little, a reward, a mark of pride for choosing the right response, and so is the one Jake lays on the corner of your mouth. 

Later, you'll watch more of Dave's journal entries. You'll cry, again. And it'll be all right. 

The people around you, those you love and that love you back, will force it to be all right.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry if the formatting sucks, this is my first time using this site...if it's unreadable because I did something wrong PLEASE tell me so I can attempt to fix it.


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